Maria Rosa Oidor, Colombia | FILTER

Maria Rosa Oidor runs her farm, Los Nogales, with her husband Antonio Pillimué and their four children. The farm is situated a thirty minutes’ walk from the small town of San Antonio, where the couple also have a small shop. Maria Rosa and Antonio saved the money to buy their three hectare farm from the savings they made from their shop
some fifteen years ago.

Today, Maria Rosa ́s family is dedicated entirely to coffee. Her eldest son, Robinson, has
previously worked as a leader of the local growers’ association, as well as being a well-
known coffee producer in his own right. Her younger, Nilson, has also inherited part of the family farm and is working to learn all about coffee. Doña Maria, even at the age of 58, still takes a hike up the mountain every day to organize pickers and schedule the work for the day. She is an impressive woman, a symbol of the female coffee farmer in
Colombia, who often does not received as much recognition as their "Juan Valdez" counterpart.

Despite the small size of the farm, Maria and Antonio decided to plant three different varietals in the high hills upon which their land lies: Tabi, Typica and Caturra. The high altitude of their farm (2,000 metres above sea level) makes it possible to continue growing these more susceptible cultivars despite the dangers of coffee leaf rust. Nonetheless, preparing for the future, two years ago they replanted areas of old trees with the Castillo varietal, following incentives from the Colombia’s Coffee Growers’ Federation (FNC). Recently, Maria has been veering away from Typica and Caturra, and began planting Pink Bourbon.

The coffee trees are fertilized three times a year depending on the state and quantity of coffee on the tree, and seeds for new trees are collected and germinated on the farm itself. During the harvest, up to fifteen workers help with picking, and the family employees one permanent worker who helps maintain the crop throughout the year.